High-Altitude Gingerbread House

Nothing says Christmas like building gingerbread houses with the family. I've made this recipe with 100% organic ingredients. You can find organic jelly candies at your local natural food store. I've found Surf Sweets a great source. Of course, this recipe works with conventional ingredients as well. When it comes to house design, feel free come up with your own designs with the family.

Decorations

INSTRUCTIONS

Cream the butter and sugar in an electric mixer with a paddle attachment.
2 minutes

Add the egg and honey and mix thoroughly. Be sure to scrape the sides of the bowl down for evening mixing.
1 minute

Add all the dry ingredients and mix until a loose dough forms.
2 minutes

Transfer the dough to a plastic bag or or wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight or for at least 8 hours.
about 8 hours

When the dough has solidified in the refrigerator, take it out and let it sit for about 15-30 minutes before working. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350F degrees.
1 minute

While the dough is warming up, prepare your house design. The footprint of the house pictured in this recipe was about 7"x7" and about 7" tall. Caution should be taken when designing any tall structure, you'll want to make sure the weight of the roof can be supported by the sides of the house. Start simple and if you like building gingerbread houses, work your way up to more complex designs. Design and draw on cardboard and cut out all the pieces. You can try prototyping with cardboard, but keep in mind that the gingerbread will be heavier than cardboard.
1 minute

Roll our the dough to about 1/6" thickness and cut out your pieces based on your designs.
1 minute

Transfer the cut outs to a baking pan and bake for 10-15 minutes, depending on how big your pieces are. They should be golden brown.
15 minutes

Once the gingerbread is ready, take it out of the oven and allow it to cool until room temperature.
30 minutes

When the gingerbread is cool enough, the fun part begins! Start assembling your house. Begin by assembling the sides of the house with icing. You may need an extra pair of hands to do this. Inside our house, we've constructed 2 beams out of preztel sticks to provide structural support for the roof. Once that's done, attach the roof pieces with icing. Overall, it's about experimenting and trial and error, together with friends and family. You may need to sand off some pieces to make it fit or our solution was simply more icing! Last but not least, the candy decorations. Go wild! Ours is a modest barn in the Sierra mountains, but yours can be very different. Have fun with it!
10 minutes